Occasionally Offensive

The Third Pig Cover

I wrote this story a few years ago for a theme anthology that (as far as I know) never came to fruition. It’s a very funny story, so I decided to publish it on its own, along with another story that never found a home. Humor is hard to sell. If you like funny fantasy stories, I urge you to check these out.

I hit a creative wall a few years ago and pretty much stopped drawing. Since…maybe 2004? Except for the chicken comic, I hardly ever draw and paint, restricting most of my art to 3-D. I just can’t stand how my stuff looks. It never looks good enough, and I’m always embarrassed. I knew I needed an illustrated cover for this story, however, because a photo wouldn’t fit with the theme.

So I asked Gilead, a talented artist, if he’d do an illustration for me. He was kind enough to provide a nice mock-up for me, and said I could use it as the reference drawing for my cover. I did two sketches, one of which I did watercolor and then ink, and the other ink then watercolor. The ink was not really waterproof, so I had to throw that one away. The other one turned out good enough for my purposes. There’s a picture of the watercolor painting in my studio. The last photo is what the painting looked like when cropped and cleaned up with the tile added, ready for publishing.

I’ve been assembling most of the pieces for a while, and now the stories are ready for publishing.